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Moderated by Anne Thompson from indieWIRE, the It Starts with the Script panelists share their stories of script development, writer's block, book adaptation, and, most of all, tenacity, on the way to getting their movies to the screen.

(applause)- Welcome to day number fourof the Santa Barbara International Film Festival.It's been terrific,I need to thank Lynda.com, who is our presenting sponsorof the 27th Santa Barbara International Film Festival,and I also have to thank Pacifica Graduate Institutefor being the sponsor of the writers' panel.So, let me just get right in and introduce the panelistsfor this amazing panel.

Mike Mills, director and writer of Beginners.(applause)Will Reiser, 50/50.(applause)Jim Rash, The Descendants.(applause)Tate Taylor, The Help.(applause)J.C. Chandor, Margin Call.(applause)And you moderator, as it's been for the past years,Anne Thompson.(applause)- I love this panel, it's my favorite.

- Ah, yeah. - [Anne] All right.- All right, down we go,Mike Mills, at the beginning.- Hello.- For Beginners.(laughing)You are telling a semi-autobiographical story,explain how you maneuvered between reality and fiction.How did you make that, kind of call, in the writing process?- I'm an amazing liar.(laughing)So I've always been doing that, I think.

Well, I was writing about my father, who,I lived here, my father lived here.How many people knew Jan and Paul Mills, maybe?(applause)So, you can see how much I fictionalized and didn't.It was really important to me that while I was startingfrom a very autobiographical place,that I was reminding myself constantlythat I'm telling a story for an audience,for people who don't care about who my dad was or who I am.And so, I was always trying to think of story first,not how real is was.And then, on top of that,I'm not sure how real, real is. (laughs)I lived with a father who is my straight dadfor the first 33 years of my lifeand then he was my gay dad for the rest of his life.

And so that, those definitions of what is solidand factual and real, and what isn't has always beena little slippery to me anyways.- So you're a home town boy, you grew up here, right?- Yeah, yeah my father is directorof the Santa Barbara Art Museumand both parents were very dedicated to that.He was director for, I don't know, 12, 15 years, something.Someone maybe knows here and I should know.But I lived here from when I was four to 18and then I ran like hell to New York City.(laughing)And I've been in here many times,I think I've seen so many (bleep) surf movies in here.

(laughing)Has anybody else been there?But I was like, you know, freckly and pale,so I was basically like, you know,racially prejudice against growing up here,and trying to be apart of the surf scenethat I couldn't be part of.(laughing)Sad.- So, Will Reiser, you too are telling a,an autobiographical story,and you worked with your buddy Seth Rogen.

Explain a little bit of how the script came to be.- Well, first of all I should say semi-autobiography,you know the same, you know as it goes,for Mike, you know, with writing it I tryto tell the best story possible,and sort of not worry about what was true to my own life.And this story came about, 'cause six years agoI was diagnosed with cancer six and a half years ago,and Seth Rogen is one of my long time best friendsand we were, you know,while I was sick we were at a party one nightand we realized that there just, there was no moviethat depicted what it was like to be youngand to have cancer.

And now most movie are about a really sad and melodramaticand maudlin and they're about middle aged peopleand that character usually dies at the end.And there's sort of no hope and there's no funny,and there's no humor.And I mean, the way we coped with my illness was by making,was through humor, and through jokes.And so, we thought we should do a buddy comedythat's about a character who has cancerand his best friend who doesn't know how to deal with it.And sort of base it loosely on our own relationship,and that was sort of the launching point of the script.

- So he became the producer. - [Will] He did.- And helped to kind of push it forward and.- Yeah, yeah, I would say, you know,we talked about it that night while I was sick,and then it was an idea that really stuck in my headand Seth's head, and also our friend Evan Goldberg,who's Seth's writing partner.And it was an idea that we all really gravitated towardsbut it was really difficult for me to actually sit downand start writing it.And so, Seth and Even really, were just,I mean, they just bugged the (bleep) out of mefor a year and a half, until I actually just sat downand started writing it.

And without them, I mean, without having,I think had i not had two of my best friendsacting as my producers, I don't know if I would haveactually been able to write it.- So, Jim, you're an actor and a writer.- Yeah.- And you've been an actor, you're on Community.- Yes.- So how did you and Alexander Payne reach, you know,come to know each other?What was the connection?- Well, my writing partner, Nat Faxon and Ihad written this original screenplaythat was based on somethingthat happened to me in my childhood,and that sort of got the attention of some peoplewho were looking for writers for other projects,and Alexander Payne's production companyhad optioned The Descendants.

And it sort of mirrored some of the tonesthat we were going with in our original,the mixture of comedy and drama.And so, they brought us in, we read the book,we loved it, and we gave our sort of take,and that's how sort of it began.At the time, Alexander wasn't, was just gonna be a producer,'cause he was working on another project.And then, as luck would have it,he decided to direct it, so.- All right.And Tate Taylor, you and Kathryn Stockett,the writer of The Help, are old, old, dear friendsand even roommates, right?You actually lived together.

- Oh yeah, we lived in, we still keep an apartmentin the East Village that we've,it's rent controlled so we, shh.(laughing)The East Village, yeah, we've been friendssince we were five years of ageand always supported each otherand found ourselves living in New Yorkin the early 90s together and we've kept that apartment,she wrote the novel there and I wrote the screenplay there.- And that novel was really turned down by 60 publishers?- Agents.- A-ha, illiterary agents.- Yeah, yeah, you can't darken the doorsof a publishing house with that, yeah 60.

And she would not let me read the book,because she didn't know if it was any good.And, for five years, and she got her 60th reject letter,when we were having lunch, she said,"Okay, you can read it, tell me what's wrong with it."And I got on a plane and I could not believewhat she had done.And I landed and I said, they're idiots, trust me.Can I make it into a movie?(laughing)And so, she gave me the rights before there was,she just got an agent before there was a publisheror anything.

And so, I and my producing partner set off to,I'm just gonna adapt my friend's unpublishable book,and we were going to make a independent filmand maybe help her get her book published.(laughing)A business model kinda flip.(applause)- Now, J.C., you are really not someone who'd hada lot of writing done in the movies,this was a real early attempt for you.- I'd written a lot but it'd never been made.

- Been produced.(laughing)Explain, explain what that, you know,where you were when this came along.- I'd been, sort of a not very successful commercialand documentary director,that was trying to do this, you know,I was trying to write and direct my own material.So, had written one or two things,I mean, written a bunch of things,but really written one or two projectsthat I worked on for,you know, seven or eight years.

One finally sort of came togetherand then blew up about six daysprior to principal photography.And, you know, we had a deposit, a full crew,I mean, we were ready, ready to go.- That's horrible.- So I had taken, I don't know,eight or nine months off working on anything else,and had a young baby at the time and,you know, had put myself in a terrible financial position.

So I sort of walked away for,you know, almost three years.And this story just sort of started to grow in my headand then finally, you know, I sat down and wrote it.And very quickly the first draft.And, you know, gave it to two peopleand kind of very superstitiously felt like if somethingwas meant to come from it, it would.

And it was, you know, not to be melodramatic about itbut it was, you know, sort of my last shot at it.And I think I knew it was the best thing I'd ever writtenup until that point, so I kind of felt like,if something was gonna come from it, it would.And it did, thankfully. (laughs)- Including an Oscar nomination, by the way, so.(applause)

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Released

2/3/2012

As the presenting sponsor of the 27th Annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival, lynda.com is once again pleased to open the door to four entertainment industry panels that feature some of Hollywood's top talent. Panelists are carefully chosen during the awards season and include many you'll see on the Golden Globes® and Oscars®.

Moderated by Anne Thompson from indieWIRE, the It Starts with the Script panelists share their stories of script development, writer's block, book adaptation, and, most of all, tenacity, on the way to getting their movies to the screen. Mike Mills (Beginners) tells us about turning his own story about his father into a screenplay. Will Reiser (50/50) also turned a life experience, his personal battle with cancer, into a comedy starring his best friend Seth Rogen. Jim Rash (The Descendants) walks us through his process as he turned the book by Kaui Hart Hemmings into a film nominated for five Academy Awards®. Tate Taylor (The Help) was roommates with author Kathryn Stockett, who wrote the best-selling book; he finished the screenplay (and owned the rights) before the book was even published. Writer J. C. Chandor (Margin Call) wrote about the financial markets, having grown up with his father immersed in that world.

With all of these brilliant writers, "write what you know" became their life's mantra while they worked on their screenplays. They share funny and poignant anecdotes about their experiences and processes on the way to the big screen.